Gratitude

 

Greek philosopher Aristotle once mused, “Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.” However, the inverse is also true: “Misfortune shows

Reflections

Barely less than three weeks ago, the entire City Harvest congregation was basking in the immense success of the Asia Conference 2010. It wasn’t merely a climactic finale to all the hard work and dedication that had been put in by the staff and ministry volunteers of the church; it was a culminating

Did Jesus Resurrect from the Dead?

The last few weeks have been quite the rollercoaster ride—ups and downs aplenty! I promise that in my next blog post, I will address all the concerns that some of you have raised recently. But for now, I hope that we can all focus on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as we celebrate His sacrifice and victory for us this Easter weekend.

CHC’s New Home: Suntec Convention Centre

This is an article about CHC’s new church building that was printed in City News Weekly, March 7, 2010. CNW is a newspaper reporting news from a Christian perspective. With CNW’s permission, I have reproduced the whole article in full below. Enjoy!

New Building

In the Holy Scripture, Jacob encountered the Lord in a dream. When he awoke, he proclaimed, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” (Gen. 28:17)

The Power of Fasting

I have been fasting regularly since 1986. In the early days, I would fast once a week for 24 hours, from 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday to 6:00 a.m. on Thursday. However, since 2004, I have been going on 21-day full fasts once every 6 months. Once, in 2007, I fasted for 40 days.

When Bad Things Happen To Good People

Recently I was invited to speak at an Indonesian church an hour outside of Jakarta. The senior pastor was diagnosed with liver cancer a year earlier. The doctors attending to him explored the possibility of a liver transplant. After much effort, the money needed for the operation was raised and a liver donor was found. On the eve of the surgery, as the doctors were doing a final pre-op examination, they discovered that the cancer had spread throughout his body. It was now too late to do a liver transplant and the procedure was called off. The pastor and his family were devastated by this unexpected turn of events. Upon hearing the news, the assistant pastor was so grief-stricken that the next day, he suddenly collapsed in the middle of the church service and died. Forty days later, the senior pastor passed away. Without any clergy in this fledgling church, the housewifely widow of the senior pastor had to conduct the funeral service on her own. Some finger-pointing members started questioning if the untimely deaths of the top leadership were due to divine retribution, or whether the church was cursed. Over the next few months, attendance began to dwindle. As I ministered in the church, I could sense an unspoken question in the air—why do bad things happen to good people?

Wholesome Shallowness?

In 2007, my wife Sun released a music video of the hit single, “China Wine,” the result of a creative collaboration with reggae wunderkind, Wyclef Jean. That video garnered a lot of attention on YouTube with more than two million hits over two dozen fan sites. It received rave reviews from industry insiders as well as youths who love dance pop the world over. Not surprisingly, the video also raised quite a few eyebrows within the religious fraternity who felt it was inappropriate for a Christian to be featured in a dance video.

Racial & Religious Harmony

On August 16, 2009, I was invited to the National Day Rally held at the NUS University Cultural Center. The National Day Rally is akin to the State of the Union Address delivered by the President of the United States. In our case, it is an annual address that the Prime Minister of Singapore makes to the entire nation.

What City Harvest Church Is All About

This is the 20-minute message I shared on August 2, 2009, at the second 20th Anniversary service held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

What an awesome thing it is for us to be celebrating our 20th Anniversary as a church. Let’s face it, to have come through all these years, against incredible odds, is nothing short of a miracle.